Wii Party U review – virtual icebreaker

Nintendo has refused to invite Mario to their latest party, but without him does this new mini-game collection have anything to offer either casual or core gamers?

By now we assume Nintendo realise they’ve lost the attention of the casual market that was so key to the Wii’s success. The likes of Wii Sports and Wii Fit now seem doomed to become this era’s equivalent of a Space Hopper or a Sodastream, a passing fad destined only to be remembered by B-list celebrities on nostalgia-filled TV specials. But if Nintendo does accept that their blue sky strategy has turned grey what will that mean for future games on the Wii U? We probably won’t begin to find out until next year, but it’s clear that Wii Party U was commissioned long before the Wii U’s current predicament became obvious.

Wii Party U is a mini-game collection, which next to more 2D platformers is just about the last thing the console needs at the moment. It’s a sequel to the 2010 game Wii Party, which at the time was promoted as a replacement for the Mario Party series. Why Nintendo would want to replace such a successful franchise with such an anodyne experience as Wii Party we can’t imagine, but the switch wasn’t successful and the game was a critical failure and only a minor commercial hit. So much so that Mario Party 9 was drafted in to save the day a couple of years later.

That makes the decision to reverse gear once again all the more surprising, but although Wii Party U’s presentation is as offensively inoffensive as before it does at least try to be a halfway entertaining video game.

If you haven’t played any of Nintendo’s party games before the concept is very simple. Wii Party U has three main play modes, with TV Party replicating the original Mario Party idea of a virtual board game. Using Mii as counters you roll a dice to make your way around the board, playing mini-games – from a selection of over 80 – at various intervals. There are five boards, each with a very different visual design and ruleset. GamePad Island is the closest to the original Wii Party, as you roll a dice in an increasingly complex number of ways on the GamePad (shaking it, playing pachinko, etc.) and then advance along to the end.

In Highway Rollers you’re throwing a whole armful of dice at once, in order to compete in a marathon, and in Mii Fashion Plaza you’re trying to collect all the pieces of a fancy dress costume. There’s also Teammate Madness (collect Miis to form a football squad) and The Balldozer (earn balls for random prizes) but the problem with all the boards is that they’re so miserly with the mini-games. In Mario Party you play a mini-game at the end of every round, and potentially also when landing on special spaces. In Wii Party U though there’s never any regular schedule and you can go five or 10 minutes sometimes without playing a four-player game.

Wii Party U (Wii U) – the future of tabletop football

This problem is indicative of the fact that the game seems to have a very different idea about what’s fun than anyone we’ve actually played it with. Sitting around watching people throw virtual dice (or worse watching the computer do it if you don’t have four people handy) is deadly dull and it’s only because we know it’s not listening that we stopped ourselves screaming ‘get on with it’ at every juncture.

It’s a shame because a good proportion of the mini-games are fun. Not all of course, but since they generally only last for 30 seconds or so there’s some good fun to be had chasing opponents down in a UFO or blowing them up with a pirate ship by solving a sliding block puzzle. There’s a wild animal racing game (our tip is to always pick the giraffe), a number of of shooting and memory games, and plenty more besides. Even the stinkers can be made fun if you decide to cheat – indeed the game often goes out of its way to allow you to steal points or items from each other when back on the board.

But the meandering pacing kills so much of the fun the effort rarely seems worth it, unless you’re drunk or you really like Whack-A-Mole. A selection of slightly more complex mini-games is available in the House Party mode, many of which involve clowning around in front of the TV in some manner. Compared to the underappreciated Spin The Bottle: Bumpie’s Party though it’s pretty tepid stuff – even the one where you have to pantomime Auld Lang Syne to Mario tunes or take selfies using the GamePad’s camera.

What’s more successful though is the GamePad Party mode, a selection of separate mini-games where two people sit either end of the GamePad and play games exclusively on its screen. Again it’s very simple stuff: a version of tabletop football, a co-operative jigsaw puzzle, and another memory game; but using an analogue stick each is a fun novelty and some of the games are interspersed with even shorter mini-games – such as trying to wind a lift up out of a mineshaft or cutting a tree trunk.

Unlike the original Wii Party, which we hated, it is possible to have fun with Wii Party U but the whole experience still seems poorly positioned and far too much like throwing every idea possible at the GamePad and seeing what sticks – with no concern for normal considerations of longevity or depth. If we end up playing it at Christmas we won’t be too upset, but we’d still rather play Mario Party 9 or Nintendo Land – or, you know, a proper game…

In Short: It’s still not a patch on the better Mario Party games but its still one of the few video games where literally everyone can join in and have some sort of fun – from non-gamers to the ultra hardcore.

Pros: A lot of different game modes and plenty of different ways to play. Mini-games have a decent ratio of good-to-bad and the GamePad games in particular are surprisingly fun. You get a free Wii Remote Plus in the box.

Cons: The boards are very poorly paced, with too few excuses to play mini-games. Most of the House Party games aren’t much fun and the whole package has a bland, watered-down feel.